Blood river

Red is a strange colour for a river. That’s what the residents of Chongqing, in Southwest China, must have thought when last thursday a red tint began appearing in the Yangtze river – the largest and longest river in China.

Although this incident didn’t refrain locals from fishing in the red waters, it did however upset the authorities who took several days to trace the sources of the pollution, caused by two chemical plants discharging their production waste water into the river’s sewer pipes. The Luoyang Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau worked to shut down the workshops and disassemble the workshops’ machinery. The river’s usual colour was resumed shortly after.